@hearthandcode
About
I'm a software developer and builder. RPI CS grad (2007), with a decade across fintech, healthcare, telephony, and media. I stepped away in 2020 for mental health reasons and spent six years rebuilding. When I came back, I found a field transformed by AI — and decided the gap between where I was and what I wanted to build was worth closing deliberately, in public, and at depth.
What I'm building
Hearth & Code — a gamified, adaptive AI-native learning platform. The long vision: an affordable alternative to a university, personalized to how learners actually think and work, with doctoral-depth content and real mastery tracking. Not another course platform. Something built from the ground up around how people learn when institutions aren't involved.
Before I build the product, I'm proving the model on myself.
The curriculum
I designed a 67-module open-source doctoral curriculum in Applied AI & ML — phd-applied-ai. Real thesis. Five AI advisor personas calibrated to distinct OCEAN personality profiles. A par-scoring system that replaced deadlines with qualitative mastery bars.
I have ADHD and bipolar disorder. The system is designed around how my brain actually operates — variable energy, non-linear progress, off days logged as data instead of failures. Over the next 5+ years I'll be publishing longitudinal data on what self-directed doctoral study looks like for a neurodivergent learner. The AIED field has almost none of this. Mine will be public.
What you'll find here
- Field reports from each module — what clicked, what didn't, what the theory actually means when you're planning to build something with it
- Design decisions behind Hearth & Code as they happen
- Notes on building an AI-native learning platform from first principles
- Honest accounting of what it's like to return to software after years away and build something ambitious with limited resources
I'm writing for developers who want depth over polish and builders who are figuring it out in public. Cross-posted from hearthandcode.substack.com
Available for
Nothing here yet.
